Its neck is buff colored with a large white patch on either side of its throat making it appear as if it's wearing a collar.

[3] The beak is greyish black and the legs are dark brown and short making travel on ground difficult for this bird.

This species bounces buoyantly while flying and takes frequent glides accompanied by a double wing beat.

During the winter, birds migrate from February until April to Papua New Guinea as non-breeding visitors.

[9] Although most overwinter outside of Australia, there are birds that remain in north and central Queensland all year long.

This species is able inhabit a wide variety of habitats but is most commonly found in dry low-elevation forests.

They prefer to nest and roost in dry sclerophyll woodlands with sparse and discontinuous understory.

[10][11] Many individuals have been found to specifically live in woodlands that have experienced disturbances such as forest fires.

[8] Those that winter in New Guinea occur in savannas, open grasslands, forest edges, marshlands and gardens.

Mostly made by males, their song is composed of a series of rapidly ascending bubbling notes.

[5] White-throated nightjars do not make nests and instead lay their eggs directly onto leaf litter or bare soil.

If the nest or nestling are threatened, parents put on a variety of distractions that include short flights, vocal hisses and barks, and flicking tail movements while on the ground.

[14] They are often traveling along the sides of roads at night searching for food resulting in fatal traffic collisions.

Fire ants (Wasmannia auropunctata) introduced in the 1970s have spread into E. mystacalis native range and threaten nestlings.

Furthermore, increasing bushfires have affected large parts of the Melaleuca savanna, destroying habitable sites.